Need a new video card for an older system

[SirShaggy]

OK, I built this system in January of 2007. It was real basic at the time. As the next year went by, I bought an upgraded CPU (6400+), 2 Raptors in RAID 0, 4x1GB OCZ Platinum DFI Special PC2-6400 RAM, Sunbeam Heatsink and so on. The motherboard died on me in November 2008. On a whim, I sent it to DFI to check out. I got a new one back!!! I started putting this system back together around the end of May. I realized I had stole the video card from the old system for a Linux PC I had put together. I now need a new card. I am using Vista 64 ultimate on this system. I borrowed a GTS 250 from a friend to try out. It has WAY more power than the 7950GT I had in it! I am concearned about buying one though. My board is PCI-E x16 version 1.1 and the new card is ver. 2.0
Is this a problem really? I was just going to Ebay a cheap 7950GT until I tried the GTS 250. I know my CPU doesn't really have the power to push the card to it's max but it seemed to work OK, in fact much faster in games than my 7950GT. I also like the thought of using it for folding@home and love the price of the GTS 250's. I paid a lot more for my 7950GT. My next system early next year will be all new again. This will become a Linux Box and replace my current Linux machine. I plan to buy 1 card a leave it in here as long as it all lasts. Would this be an appropriate card to use? Any other ideas for an Nvidia based card that would be better in this setup? Because of Linux, I won't be using any ATI cards as their Linux drivers suck bad!
Thanks for your time,
SirShaggy

 

[Niktavalos]

Using a new card in a PCI-e 1.1 slot is not a problem, as they are backwards compatible. It won't hurt performance much, as a full-speed PCI-e 1.1 slot has as much bandwidth as a x8 PCI-e 2.0 slot, which is common in Crossfire/SLI setups.

The GTS 250 is a fine card, but it might be more than you really need. If this machine is going to be essentially retired from gaming in a year, you might be better off buying a cheaper 9800GT, which is the same chip with fewer (128 vs 112) stream processors. With your processor being the likely limiting factor in performance, you won't notice much of a difference between the two.